Decrease process downtime with Nor-Cal Products Foreline Traps

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Since 1962, Nor-Cal Products has been designing and building standard and custom foreline traps for the vacuum industry. These traps range in complexity from the sealed coaxial traps, which prevent oil backstreaming, to the triple-pass water cooled traps, which remove condensible gasses that contaminate mechanical pump oil or other parts of the system. Often times our customers see a 200% increase in preventative maintenance intervals after installing one of these traps. All traps disassemble easily with a FKM O-ring and V-clamp, with the exception of our sealed coaxial metal sieve traps which have a one piece body. The two piece body allows for easy removal for cleaning or filter replacement. The standard trap body finish is beadblast. Electropolish inside and out is available upon request. Electropolished traps are easier to clean because the surface is more highly polished than the standard beadblast finish. Nickleplating is also available for additional corrosion resistance.
Liquid Recovery Traps
Nor-Cal Products has provided many types of condensation traps for liquid collection before they enter the pump. Often they have valves or drains to allow the liquid to be collected and reused. Some of the liquids collected include photoresist, oil and tantalum.
High Capacity Particulate Traps
Nor-Cal Products can provide high-capacity particle traps with multi-liter capacities for applications with large particle loads, such as silicon wafer processing.
High Capacity Water Cooled Traps
Semiconductor CVD equipment manufacturers require high wafer counts between preventative maintenance. Unlike other manufacturers who offer one solution to fit a number of applications, Nor-Cal Products will design high-capacity water-cooled traps to achieve specific customer-stated goals. Port geometry, capacity, conductance and efficiency are adjusted in order to produce the optimal design for the application. Examples of processes we have provided solutions for include TiN barrier layer deposition, LPCVD Nitride and III-Vs MOCVD.
Liquid Nitrogen Traps
High capacity liquid nitrogen traps can be furnished for customers who require larger LN2 capacity to extend the time between refills or larger trapping capacity for condensible by-product.
Multistage Traps
Multistage traps can be furnished for processes that require a combination of trap media, such as water-cooling and particle filtration. The trap shown here was developed for a GaAs, GaN, AsP MOCVD processes. The first stage collects the heavy metals, while the water cooled second stage collects sulfur. The third stage particle filter collects any fine particulates.
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